The noisy pitta is conspicuously coloured for a little ground bird vulnerable to predation. Their stiking plumage includes electric blue shoulders, green wings, yellow breast, red/pink tail (male/female) and a chestnut ‘hat’.
The noisy pitta’s habitat extends along the Australian east coast up into Papua New Guinea. It lives in tropical and sub-tropical rainforests, dry and wet schleropyll and may be partly migratory in colder months.
Their diet consists of mostly snails and insects but also worms, spiders and occasionally fruit. The snails are broken open by repetitively hitting them against rocks.
The versicolor species that resides here at Mary Cairncross breeds from July to February. Both parents care for 2 – 4 white/bluish eggs that are laid in a dome-shaped nest on the ground.